Justice

(Years Three/Four of Robb’s Illustrious Career)

My third/fourth year in the business I worked for this show-runner who was a real piece of work. He was the most hated figure I’ve ever worked for. He made The Weasel look like a normal, well-adjusted human being. From the writers room to the production office to the stage, everybody hated him.

This guy was a harsh dictator. I’ve never seen anybody better at shutting down creativity in a room. Writers pitching jokes or brainstorming ideas would be cut off and dismissed mid-sentence, mid-pitch. Nice. The in-joke in the writers room was that if he was looking for an integer between 2 and 4 and you pitched 3, you would get shot down.

Strangely, this guy was also helpless. He couldn’t do anything by himself. He had no personal assistant, so we were ALL his personal assistant. I was personally called by the guy on a weekend and compelled to help him out with something personal. Let me repeat, I was NOT his personal assistant. My son was an infant at the time, but apparently the guy didn’t think I had anything more important to do on a Sunday morning than get in the car and go help him out. The in-joke in the production office was that you might get a call from the guy in the toilet demanding that you come help him with the paperwork.

One day Mr. Sunday Morning said his computer monitor “flickered.” I was called into his office and yelled at when I could see no flickering. Well, actually, he didn’t yell, he rolled his eyes condescendingly and told me to go find somebody else – anybody else – to come in his office to confirm the flickering. No matter how many assistants and then producers were called in, NO ONE else could see any flickering. The line producer called the computer rental company and had the non-flickering computer and monitor replaced. Twice. Guess what? Mr. Sunday Morning said it still flickered. I will never forget this: I was personally in his office, along with the line producer and all the writers and some of the cast, when Mr. Sunday Morning became enraged and literally shouted to the heavens, “Why does no one else see this flickering?!”. Everybody in the room was acutely aware of the obvious reason. Everybody except him.

He was fired. Well, I got ahead of myself. First the executive producer was told – by everyone – about this guy. Producers were running around in circles wasting time and money on crap for him. The executive producer’s hand-picked writers were not being allowed to write or even contribute, and were threatening to quit. Nobody was happy. A few shows in, production was shut down and Mr. Sunday Morning was given a serious talking-to. After that, he was on his best behavior. At considerable expense, we spent weeks retooling. An additional writer was brought in to clear the air and “reset” the writers room. Writers’ contributions were welcomed and accepted. Everything was back on track, and everyone was happy.

Until we started taping again. With the stress of production, the dictatorial prima donna control freak jerk returned and everything went back to the way it was. A few shows into this second part of the season, the executive producer unexpectedly appeared on the lot, went into Mr. Sunday Morning’s office, and fired him. Security escorted him off the lot.

It was wonderful. It was… justice.

For weeks afterward it was like the laws of gravity did not apply in our little world. As my Uncle Bernard used to say, “When you hit your thumb with a hammer as hard as you can over and over and over… it feels so good when you stop.” The rest of the season was filled with sweetness and light. And with cruel, unrelenting jokes from everyone about the disgraced, fired jerk. The satisfaction was overwhelming. The world is fair after all.

Or is it?

Four years later, I saw Mr. Sunday Morning’s name on a movie poster. And I about lost my lunch. He wrote a movie – a big, successful, $100+ million Hollywood blockbuster. And later that same year, he did it again. He wrote ANOTHER big, successful, $100+ million Hollywood blockbuster. Movies with BIG HUGE stars. And prominent, beloved, cult-following directors. I am not making this up. The guy made it big. Twice in one year. The disgraced jerk hadn’t faded away, he just moved… into movies. And looking at imdb, his plate is still quite full. This guy is a huge success. We got cancelled, but he made it big.

He sure showed us.

In the years since, I have tried to figure out the true meaning of these events. You know, the big, cosmic truth. Was Mr. Sunday Morning really a jerk? Yes. Is he really a successful writer? Yes. Is he successful BECAUSE he is a jerk? Or in spite of this? Or is there any relationship between these whatsoever? For me, this is the question. Young P.A.s and assistants often ponder this issue, because the vast majority of the time in the business the people in charge (like Mr. Sunday Morning and The Weasel) are dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks. So do people become dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks BECAUSE they are successful and are allowed to get away with anything? Or do they become successful BECAUSE they are dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks to begin with? Is one a prerequisite for the other? If so, which one? Can you really be successful if you are NOT a dictatorial prima donna control freak jerk? Or will all normal, nice, well-adjusted writers become dictatorial prima donna control freak jerks once they become successful?

And which one am I?

“The Thing About Lunch” or “The Worst I Ever Had”

(Year One of Robb’s Illustrious Career)

Let’s get one thing straight. Television production is about one thing and one thing only: lunch.

It was my first job in the business. I was working on a real TV show, on a broadcast network, with my name in the credits. I was psyched. 

I would soon be crushed. It was the worst job I’ve ever had.

At the bottom of the bottom, I had many duties: phones, drive-ons, filing, getting the latest script pages to the writers, director, and executive producer. But I soon learned that none of these mattered.

What mattered was lunch. My real job was to take care of lunch.

“Lunch” sounds so simple, so uncomplicated. It isn’t. First off, there’s more than one. There’s the office lunch, which is lunch for the writers, producers, and P.A.s. But then there’s the catered lunch for the art department. There’s the stage lunch. There’s the taping lunch. And on very special weeks, the screening lunch. 

Don’t get me started on the editing breakfast.

There’s the old line in Hollywood: “What I really want to do is direct.” Well, what I actually got to do was catering.

TV production revolves around lunch. Why? Two words: powerlessness and control. The largest group in the production office is the writers. Writers are moody creative types who are crushingly self-critical and are convinced they are powerless (I’m not pointing fingers here – I’m one myself). The problem is that they’re, well,… actually correct about this. In the big world of production, writers control nothing. NOTHING. And if there’s one thing that makes perceived powerlessness worse, it’s real, actual powerlessness. But where was I? Oh yeah: writers control NOTHING. Oh wait – there is one thing I forgot to mention that they actually DO get to control: lunch. So when they get in to work and get knee-deep into a series of impossible problems they have to solve but cannot control, where do you think they vent their frustrations and lash out in a desperate attempt to overcome their powerlessness?

Lunch.

The thing about lunch is that it happens every day.

Worst job I ever had.

Now, I see you rolling your eyes. I mean, jeez Robb, it’s only lunch. How bad can it be? It doesn’t sound serious, you say. But lunch is very serious. I saw P.A.s fired for picking up lunch and bringing writer/producers back the wrong salad dressing. This was not unusual.

Plus the show-runner, the head writer, the guy who got to most control lunch, was a monster who made my life a living hell. Okay, that’s too harsh. The Kevin Spacey character in Swimming With Sharks – that guy is a monster. This show-runner, he was more of… well, a spineless weasel. A passive-aggressive spineless weasel. With arbitrary dietary requirements.

Before you jump on that last sentence, let me be clear: this gut did NOT have food allergies. Or health concerns. Or food tolerance issues, or anything like that. Nothing health-related. So when I say “arbitrary” dietary requirements, I mean arbitrary. He didn’t eat meat, except when he did. He ate protein only, except when he didn’t. He would let someone else pick the restaurant we would order from, then yell and scream when the menu had “nothing he could eat.”

And when I say “yell and scream,” I mean real, actual yelling and screaming. This was not unusual.

Yes, I went to grad school for this.

By mid-season I finally gave up. Or got smart, depending on how you look at it. Whenever I’d have to coordinate a big lunch, like a screening lunch or a cast reading lunch or a pre-taping snack/lunch thing, I would just go directly to The Weasel and ask him what he wanted. Yes, this would reward his behavior and be unfair to everyone else, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to prevent the drama and the yelling and screaming. And the firing. Especially the firing. This new system would be foolproof, wouldn’t you think? Wouldn’t you?

Are you kidding?

I went to his office one evening, pitching him three of his favorite restaurants for the next day’s screening lunch. He picked a restaurant and I already had a few options figured out, entrees and sides I knew he usually ordered. All that was left was for him to pick. Once he did I made sure to VERY CAREFULLY give him the recap of what he picked, what I would order, the complete spread all 25 of us would be eating from. I was determined – there would be no surprises the next day, no yelling or screaming. Or firing. The Weasel rolled his eyes – my anality was SO annoying – and condescendingly said yes, all this would be fine. I mean, jeez Robb, it’s only lunch.

When lunch came the next day there was yelling and screaming. He came THIS CLOSE to firing me. There was nothing he could eat. Nothing. This really happened. In front of the entire crew. This was less than 24 hours after he himself chose all the food. 

I later learned from a producer that The Weasel had gone on a no-carb diet an hour or two after our little meeting. After our little meeting where he had chosen platters of pasta and breaded chicken. My job was saved when a P.A. agreed to run across the street and get The Weasel a 100% plain grilled chicken breast – no butter or seasonings of any kind (The Weasel complained that it was dry). This was not unusual.

The thing about lunch is that it happens every day. Every. Single. Day.

I had that job for almost two years. That’s a lot of lunches. I had that job until the president of the production company finally read my script and promoted me. The new job was awesome. It wasn’t a writing job, but it was a lot closer. And some other unlucky bastard had to take care of lunch.

Great Documentary

Add this to your Netflix queue: Dreams on Spec. If you’re reading this blog, you need to see it.

A documentary filmmaker follows three aspiring Hollywood screenwriters through the ups and downs of breaking into the biz. Their struggles with writing, the “how long can I do this with my life?” dilemma, the depression/euphoria/prima donna cycle, all that. Plus commentary from successful writers (James L. Brooks, Steven de Souza, Ed Solomon,…) who went through all this and made it. If you’re a Hollywood hopeful, you’ll recognize every minute of it. If you have a family member or friend trying to break in, you’ll realize that it’s not just them – every word they’re telling you is true. Or if you’re just curious and want 90 minutes of immersion into the life of a struggling screenwriter, you’ll get it. It really gets in all the way like I have not seen before. Good stuff.

Check it out. Then come back and comment about it. Great discussion from this one.

(Thanks Christine for the tip!)

First Time In My Life

Tonight I wrote emails to my U.S. Congresswoman, to both my U.S. Senators, and the the President. I guess you could say I was pissed off and scared. This was the first time in my life I have ever written to any of my elected representatives (and I let them know it). 

Did it make me feel better? Eh.

Jon Stewart, Twitter, and The Weather Channel Just Destroyed My Life

Stay with me here:

Everybody see Jon Stewart take on Jim Cramer last night? Stewart destroyed him. No, wait, that’s too easy – he actually did more than that. Stewart destroyed the financial press in this country. No, he actually did more than that. Stewart destroyed the media. And for someone who has built his entire life on the idea of writing for the media, that is quite a lot for me to say. Stewart destroyed everything. 

How did Stewart do this? By being a grown-up. By actually believing that Cramer and CNBC and the financial press and the entire media is supposed to serve us. To be held accountable to us. He didn’t destroy Cramer so much as dare to live in a different world than Cramer lives in. That world that most of us have somehow found ourselves living in.

Cramer was saying that in the game-show world of the financial press – in the game-show world of the media – people can get caught up in the crazy game and make mistakes. Stewart just looked at him and asked him how he can be so useless and so shallow and so pitiful as to live in a game-show world. This shit is real. This is not a game show. Grow up.

The world financial system is not supposed to be a game show. The financial press and journalism are not supposed to live in a game-show world. Grow up.

My wife and I sat there open-mouthed. We had expected 30 minutes of light-hearted banter. What we got was the truth.

Sometimes you know something. You know it intellectually but you kind of take it for granted and it fades away into the background and then every once in a while – BOOM – it hits you again and it knocks you off your ass and you feel surprised. But more than surprised, you feel embarrassed and even ashamed that you were surprised. Because you already knew it. You were supposed to have already known it so you weren’t supposed to be surprised. That’s what happened last night.

When the show was over, in my knocked-off-my-ass stupor, I flipped to the Weather Channel. You know, to figure out what to wear to work in the morning. This is where my life really started to shatter. Did I get the weather report? No. I got a middle-aged woman standing in front of a weather map of the U.S. talking about twitter. The woman – who was supposed to be telling me about the weather forecast – was telling me that The Weather Channel has some relationship with twitter where people can tweet each other telling each other what the weather is like right now. This is where I lost it.

I don’t want someone – some random person – to tweet what the weather is right now. That is not news or expertise. What I want is a meteorologist, an educated expert – a grown-up – to tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow. Just like what I want from CNBC is a sober-minded, educated and expert financial analyst – a grown-up – to give me financial news. Not a game-show host. Does that make me a grumpy old man? Maybe. What it makes me is a grown-up.

But wait: that’s not really what this post is about. This is what it is about: youth culture is out of control and my life has to change.

Some say that before the mid-1950s, before James Dean, there was no youth culture. Or more accurately, there was no mass-marketed youth culture. There were troubled teens and adolescent ordeals, yes, but there was no mass-marketed idea of “cool.” There were no PG-13 movies, no TV shows, no alternative music. In the movies, people went from being “kids” to “grown-ups,” with nothing in between. Was this reality? No, but it was the media. 

Then along came Elvis, and James Dean, and Bob Dylan, and the 60s, and the counterculture. These images were mass-marketed, and finally kids everywhere knew what they were supposed to do to be “cool.” Suddenly there was a global understanding of “us” vs. “them,” of a “generation gap” which had never been acknowledged before on a global scale. You still had the stodgy old grown-ups who were born before this and didn’t “get it” (like Nixon), but all the “cool kids” could be cynical and cool, sticking it to “the man.” Forever young. It became better to be “cool” than to be “square,” or respectable, or grown up. “I hope I die before I get old,” etc.

And here we are in 2009. Now the “cool kids” are all we have left. Everybody running things today – the government, finance, all our institutions – grew up after the advent of youth culture. They would rather be cool than be grown-ups, no matter how ridiculous or misguided their actions really are. So today weather experts would rather talk about twitter than give weather forecasts. Financial experts would rather live in a fast-paced game-show world than be bothered with the state of the real economy. You have to admit, it is more fun. It is cooler than the weather or finance. And the kids today might actually accept you and not look at you as “square” or “a grown-up.” Anything but that. We all know the “kids’ table” is much cooler than the “grown-up table.”

Watching that weather forecaster blather on about twitter, it dawned upon me that this is all the media is: trying to look cool to today’s youth. The only things they are going to do, the only movies or TV shows they are going to make, are projects that look cool to the youth culture, no matter how ridiculous or misguided they are on their face. This goes for everything – even weather, even finance.

Like I said, sometimes you intellectually know something but it still knocks you off your ass anyway.

I don’t want to be a grown-up either. It’s not as much fun as being a kid or living in a game-show world. But I am a grown-up. Somehow I’ve become one (like Jon Stewart). I don’t care about youth culture or about looking cool or Twittering or living in a game show. The stories I am interested in – and interested in writing – are not about youth culture, they are not for youth culture, they are completely uninterested in youth culture. And yet what I am is a writer. And I have built everything on the idea of writing for the media. 

I have to tell you, I just don’t see it happening. In my 20s, when I had just moved to L.A. and had an agent and was pitching stuff and writing TV samples, sure. My culture was youth culture. That was me, and my Seinfeld sample was damn good. But now? I’m 40 and I just have zero interest in Twitter or American Idol or comic books. So I just don’t see it happening for me. It’s time to move on. Seriously.

Novels maybe?

In Deep

This is what I love about writing. This is what I hate about writing.

I wrote a scene of Psycho Ex last night. A quick, simple, self-contained, direct, 1-page, 2-characters-in-a-room scene that I has pretty happy with. So what did I do? I screwed it up and asked some people to read it, with a couple of simple questions. Of course, instead of answers they had loads of questions, all of which I thought were irrelevant: do we know these people? do they know each other? why are they in the same room? But what else should I expect from sending people a scene on page 80-something with nothing else to go from?

If the script wasn’t so overlong and fat I would send the whole thing to this point, but that would require me to shift over from “creative” mind to “critical” mind, and then a lot of time to edit and tweak, and I don’t want to take myself out of “creative” mind until the first draft is done. Plus I don’t want to waste all the first impressions of a large number of readers – must wait until the big obvious problems are fixed, otherwise they will just focus on the big obvious problems. The first draft will be WAY long but I can’t worry about that now. I just have to write scenes. 

The writing process of this script is so unbelievably different from any I’ve ever used before. But then again they are all different and there is no “standard” process. Despite all my efforts to sit down and map out the specific timeline of the rest of the script (I have the note cards all written up), I cannot seem to do this. My process lately has been to just look at the note cards, take a scene that I know will HAVE TO be in the script, and then just write it. Then I go to the next one. I will sequence them later. Usually I will figure out that scene X would be perfect right after scene Q while I am deep in the middle of writing scene F, so I’ll switch over and move them into sequence with the screenwriting software. This is the most random access digital editing process I have ever used to write. Some times my brain cannot really do it, and I cannot figure out how to resume this way of thinking/working, and it kills time with all the gear-switching. But as soon as I get into the flow of writing a scene I am okay. This is why I say “I just have to write scenes” and not think about the structure at all. Currently the “document” (script outline with full scenes written until page 80-something) comes in at 108 pages. An overlong disorganized monster that keeps growing with many many scenes to go still. The bad news is that I am deep into it. The good news is that I am deep into it. I guess this means I have hit critical mass of brain involvement so there is no going back now. Now I just have to go forward without a plan for going forward. This is what it is – not necessarily fun but a waking dream that is impossible to stop. This is the zone. Is the script/story any good? That is an impossible question with an unknowable answer that is less than irrelevant. Must… shut… up…

Random Question #42

What is the biggest thing you have ever given up on?

“Strep Throat” or “New Year’s Resolution”

I get weird when I get sick. And when I get very sick, I go into some kind of altered state. I become helpless, like a two-year-old. Seriously.

I can’t think straight, I can’t function. My mind races in a kind of dream/nightmare/panic logic. I become super-emotional and have been known to profusely and tearfully thank people for being born, usually while lying on the floor. This can last for days.

But then when I take the very first step toward getting better, something beautiful and earth-shattering happens: I wake up from that mental state and look out the window into the world for the very first time. And it’s not the cliched “the grass looks greener, the air smells different” stuff, it’s more than that – I’m seeing the grass and smelling the air for the first time. The world is the same, but it is a completely new me, completely mentally reset after a few days in the wilderness. Routines are forgotten and my patterns have been erased. I re-invent them again in time, but for a few days I do confront and explore this world for the first time – everything is new, and none of my rituals have been invented yet. I don’t already know how or what I think about things – I have to think about them again, from zero. I have no preferences or predetermined structure in the way I think about anything. I have no ego because I don’t even know who I am or what the world is. I am outside everything, even myself.

This is a strange and wonderful gift. As a writer/creative thinker, it is ideally supposed to be the optimal permanent state. But as a real person living in the real world, this is impossible and often unattainable. Except for these odd days.

A few weeks ago I had strep throat, so I got to experience this panic and exhilaration again. I have re-embraced the world and re-invented my routines and rituals since then, and those moments are only memories now. But I hope those moments are not wasted or forgotten. I hope the inspiration of those moments can remain close and serve as a powerful motivator when I need it.

I resolve to keep those moments close in my mind for as long as I can in 2009 and beyond. I resolve to remember that all my routines and structures and assumptions can be dropped at any time because they are merely empty illusions. The world is bigger than my eyes can open. Everything is stranger and more beautiful and heavier and lighter than even the headiest head can take in. Even though the sight will blow your mind and knock you on your ass, you’ve got to look at the Whole Thing sometimes.

And if these memories fade away as they inevitably do, I can always get really sick again…

Dying of Encouragement, part x+1

Verbatim e-mail I received yesterday from an exec who’d just read I Hate That Guy!:

<<Robb,
Thanks for submitting the script. Great, commercial idea and very castable. It’s not for us at this time but keep plugging away and you should be able to set this up somewhere.

Regards,>>

The guy was very nice and I genuinely appreciate his time and the read. I sent him a nice thank-you email and hope we meet again at some point. 

But hey – how many times can a guy be complimented but turned down and not become bitter?! Sheesh. I guess the answer is some number less than I have been.

I Hate That Guy!

People – yesterday changed everything and my career will never be the same. I had that meeting with the “small but influential studio” yesterday afternoon about I Hate That Guy!. It has been quite a while since my last round of meetings, but they’re always the same: they read your stuff, they call you, they tell you you’re great, they desperately want to meet with you. You try not to let yourself get excited, but as the day comes closer, you talk yourself into it: They like it, so they must want it. Or maybe they don’t want it, but they have a rewrite or some other assignment and they’re looking for a writer. They must want to offer you something – surely they don’t want to have you over merely so they can have their assistant offer you some Evian and then waste half an hour of their own valuable time for some meaningless chat before asking you “so… what else do you have?”. So you try not to let yourself get excited, but you can’t help it. I mean, they called you. These guys might be different. These guys are smart – after all, they’ve proven it: they like your script! Surely these guys aren’t in it to waste their own time. They’re going to offer you something. And they do: Evian and some meaningless chat before asking “so… what else do you have?”. And you leave utterly demoralized.

The bastards do this to me every damn time.

Yesterday was different. I didn’t let myself get excited. Just another meeting, just another Evian. They weren’t going to do this to me again. If I just don’t get excited, they can’t do it to me. Simple as that.

But then in the morning things started happening. Strange things. I got an email from my contact. Giving me the address, telling me where to park. Again. We had been over this on the phone, but he was… confirming this with me. Me, the writer. They were making extra sure I was coming.

Then I got an email from a guy in the business I met a while back. Great guy, legit guy, very helpful. It was great to hear from him. But the thing is, I haven’t spoken with him in over a year. I didn’t remember the guy when I saw his email or read his name. But here he was, out of the blue, on today of all days, asking me about the script… and whether I had an agent. Or if I needed one. Like, hypothetically, if I needed an agent – like, say, this afternoon – and I didn’t have any leads on one, he could steer me in the right direction.

What? What did this guy know? They were going to offer me something and everybody knew. Everybody but me. While I was successfully keeping myself from getting excited, the whole town was talking, and what they were saying was this: these guys are going to buy Robb’s script.

My head was swimming. I was excited. Very excited.

So I go to the meeting, and instead of being greeted at reception by an assistant, I am greeted by two guys. Okay, I think, one’s the assistant, and one’s the exec. They’ll take me to a conference room and the assistant will leave me with the exec while he fetches our Evians. But this doesn’t happen: we get to the conference room and they both stay. They’re both execs. We have foregone the Evian to get right to this. Whatever is about to happen, it requires two execs. They get right to it – the first one read the script, loved it, and took it to his boss. The boss read it, loved it, and took it to his boss, who is the VP.  The top man. The guy who can make it happen. I am very, very excited.

But the VP just read it, and he hated it. They have to pass.

Time stopped. Do… what? The bastards. They did it to me again.

But man, did they love it. They say I’m a great writer – they’d love to read anything else I have. Anything, finished or not. 3-hole punch or toilet paper. If I wrote it, they’ll read it. They freaking love me. They had to call me in just to tell me how much they love me. That and the fact that they’ll have to pass.

I pitch them Supervillain, but tell them somebody there has already passed. Forget that, they say, they love me – they can bypass the system for me, take Supervillain straight to the VP. Who passed on Supervillain?, they ask me. Jeff Sachs, I tell them. Yeah, they say. He’s the VP. The VP that hated I Hate That Guy. Jeff Sachs. Sorry. So… what else do you have?

The bastards did it to me again.

Screw this, I tell them, standing. Get Jeff Sachs out here, I demand. They are surprised at this. Uh, look, we love you, but we can’t get Jeff out here. Why not?, I ask. There’s two of you: one go get me Jeff, and the other go get me an Evian. You didn’t even offer me a freaking Evian. I am a freaking writer, everybody in town knows you are supposed to offer me a freaking Evian. That’s what you offer writers before you demoralize them. That’s how it is freaking done.

But they don’t move. I realize that no Evian is coming.

I cross to the door. Tell Jeff Sachs I hate him, I say. Tell Jeff Sachs I am going to bring his ass down. Tell Jeff I have a freaking blog, and his name will be all over it tomorrow. What are you, an idiot?, they ask, that would be suicide. No way an out-of-work writer is going to insult a studio VP on the internet, use the guy’s real name. How do you spell “Sachs”?, I ask them. They don’t answer. Okay, I’ll google him, I say, and storm out, victorious. I stride down the hall, feeling great. I will bring this taffy-ass VP to his knees, and if those guys ever see me again, they will be damn sorry.

And they were. (I had to go back into the conference room to ask them to validate my parking, but let me tell you, they were shaking.)

So Jeff Sachs: you bastards do this to me every damn time, and I’m sick of it. So, on behalf of all writers everywhere: suck it, man. Suck it. Suck. It. YOU SUCK.

Jeff Sachs sucks! I hate that guy!

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* “Jeff Sachs” is not the VP’s actual name. Jeff Sachs is a real guy, and I have some issues with him, but he is not the VP at that studio. What am I, an idiot?

** Jeff – how’s it going? Long time, no see. Want to read my script? You can bring the Evian.